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CIA Lied Over Brutal Interrogations
mrspoonsi sends this news from the BBC:
The CIA carried out "brutal" interrogations of terror suspects in the years after the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., a U.S. Senate report has said. The summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee report said the CIA misled Americans on the effectiveness of "enhanced interrogation." The interrogation was poorly managed and unreliable, the report said. President Obama has previously said that in his view the techniques amounted to torture. The Senate committee's report runs to more than 6,000 pages, drawing on huge quantities of evidence, but it remains classified and only a 480-page summary (PDF) is being released. Publication had been delayed amid disagreements in Washington over what should be made public.
CIA Director John Brennan has posted a response.
No shit.
Is anybody going to jail?
How about Bush, is this enough to put Bush in jail?
Yet, despite common ground with some of the findings of the Committee’s Study, we part ways with the Committee on some key points. Our review indicates that interrogations of detainees on whom EITs were used did produce intelligence that helped thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. The intelligence gained from the program was critical to our understanding of al-Qa’ida and continues to inform our counterterrorism efforts to this day.
Just when will the CIA get off its high horse of believing that this program, in its former form, or any newer form, produces value for the American citizen or state as a whole? They need to stop defending this indefensible stance that it's okay as long as the CIA is in charge of capturing, detaining, violating rights, and denying everything it does or has ever done.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
The opinion that Nazis committed war crimes is not universal, either.
The only difference in opinion appears to be over the effectiveness of these "interrogation techniques" (boy, there's a euphemism Torquemada could have used).
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I prefer this memo:
http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/
Part of being the "good guys" means NOT being the "bad guys".
More people die in traffic accidents EVERY YEAR than the "terrorists" have ever killed here. So why give up a morally superior position to "fight" people who pose almost no threat to anyone outside their own countries?
Queue all the posts of "Why are you surprised! of course they were doing this!"
No, you should be surprised. Suspecting and Knowing are 2 different things. Get mad, do something. Don't use your arrogance as an excuse for apathy.
I think the most enlightening part of the report was this:
The torture of prisoners at times was so extreme that some C.I.A. personnel tried to put a halt to the techniques, but were told by senior agency officials to continue the interrogation sessions.
The Senate report quotes a series of August 2002 cables from a C.I.A. facility in Thailand, where the agency’s first prisoner was held. Within days of the Justice Department’s approval to begin waterboarding the prisoner, Abu Zubaydah, the sessions became so extreme that some C.I.A. officers were “to the point of tears and choking up,” and several said they would elect to be transferred out of the facility if the brutal interrogations continued.
That gave me some hope for the world. At least some stood up and said "No" and likely ended their careers over it. I doubt we'll ever know who those people were, but if any of you read this, my hats off to you. You're the real Hero's of this war.
This reminds me of my all-time favorite Onion headline: "CIA Realizes its been using black highlighters all these years"
Even if torturing prisoners was "effective," who cares? If something is immoral, good results will never make it moral.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Page 115
I'm reminded of a quote I once heard from a U.S. Army interrogator (paraphrasing a bit to make the context and intent clear): "Torture and Drugs are something people do for fun - they're not used for gathering intelligence."
"I know from personal experience that the abuse of prisoners will produce more bad than good intelligence. I know that victims of torture will offer intentionally misleading information if they think their captors will believe it. I know they will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering. Most of all, I know the use of torture compromises that which most distinguishes us from our enemies, our belief that all people, even captured enemies, possess basic human rights, which are protected by international conventions the U.S. not only joined, but for the most part authored."
From a Republican even.
The best thing about UDP jokes is I don't care if you get them or not
No comments needed.
Who doesn't pay? Those responsible for such atrocities. We increasingly live in a society where a few - IE military and intelligence brass, the rich, the police, and corporations and individuals with the money to play the game can do nearly anything with impunity.
This meets the definition of tyranny - arbitrary or unrestrained exercise of power - and we live it every day, but most do not see it. The question is, is the natural state of being for humans - people abusing their power over others, or can it be changed and transcended?
Silence is a state of mime.
Where's the oversight? Oh, it was by the same people that oversee the NSA, never mind.
Don't know if behind paywall, got there via Google so if it doesn't work google the title and read it.
Can you imagine what is on the other 6000Â pages? If this is what they decided to release imagine what they decided to keep hidden.
In USA a report like this is allowed to surface.
Thanks Osama!
So we don't have to torture them over here
http://coreyrobin.com/2012/04/...
Certain detainees were subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques (EITs), which the Department of Justice determined at the time to be lawful and which were duly authorized by the Bush Administration. These techniques, which were last used by the CIA in December 2007, subsequently were prohibited by an Executive Order issued by President Obama when he took office in January 2009.
Damn straight that guy deserves a medal.
Wish he had kept up that sort of perspective.
CIA officers are rightly proud and honored to be part of an organization that is indispensable to our national security.
Don't be too sure about that bub.
I mean, really.
In case no one has noticed it seems everything is out of control theses days. War, spying, bankers and the economy, human rights and the list goes on.
As Leonard Cohen says in his song The Future:
Things are going to slide, slide in all directions
Won't be nothing
Nothing you can measure anymore
The blizzard, the blizzard of the world
has crossed the threshold
and it has overturned
the order of the soul
It seems that everything we ever used to benchmark human progress has slipped away.
Our nation spent a decade running a network of torture prisons, including Abu Grahib and Guantanamo bay, where cathartic biblical justice was and still is the prescription. Most of these prisoners cant be tried, and cant be released, for reasons that cant be told to the public. The actual details, while speculated for years by the public in quiet shame, were not only far worse than we could imagine but deliberately and baselessly shrouded in secrecy from the public. our intelligence agency actually lied to the govenment it was created to protect.
We can hardly keep our government open and when it is, its operation is ostensibly predicated on blanket covert surveillance against its own citizens. If anyone challenges it, we just lock them away forever and insist they are traitors. Our police operate entirely above the law, routinely executing unarmed citizens and exist in posession of several million dollars in military grade hardware from machine guns to tanks. the only thing "exceptional" about american exceptionalism these days is that we maintain the largest nuclear arsenal on the planet, and yet still havent managed to usher in the apocalypse despite a very public report on the sheer bumbling incompetence of the military divisions assigned to operate and maintain these weapons. The most devastating part about this as a foreigner, ill presume, is that a country of this level of dysfunction, porverty and animocity still controls such a disproportionate level of wealth, power, and influence.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Not just the cruelty.
Did fMRIs disappear yesterday and did I just miss the memo? Did psychoactive agents stop working? We couldn't have used neurological stimulation of the pleasure center each time a detectable truth was told until the subject couldn't wait to answer?
Did all this disappear yesterday? Did the hundreds of other neurological manipulation techniques we might have employed painlessly go away? Suppose we stimulated the "God Spot" in each detainee, and broke their religious beliefs. Think that wouldn't have worked?
Are security agency personnel simply incapable of reading neurophysiology journals? Or do we just hire stupid people?
So, instead, the CIA and probably Homeland Security (i.e. the new KGB) wallow in the temple of dumb. Any one of the aforementioned techniques is likely to be at least as effective as crude torture, and probably more so.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
we should put something in place to prevent it from happening? Oh, we signed the orders to allow the CIA to do it? Oh. Well then, shame on you for not doing it right. Back to bickering about possibly shutting the government down...
I might too, but that doesn't make us right.
I see.
Terrorizing is bad.
So obviously the solution is more terrorizing.
Feedback I submitted to the CIA website. If you no longer hear from AC, you know why...
"After reading Director Brennan's response to the CIA torture report, I no longer have faith in the CIA's leadership. I do not believe the CIA abides by US and international laws against torture. As such, I think the folks at the CIA pose a serious threat to US security concerns. As an American, I feel it necessary to report this to you.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this issue."
This article seems relevant: On the difficulties of reforming torturers.
Demented But Determined.
Torture is useless as an intelligence tool. It is also counterproductive for any reason other than a "sense of vengeance".
Sure, it satisfies that, but then you lose the moral high ground. And that shit is actually important.
Ya? So what? What is anybody going to do about it?
As a private citizen, you can do that without representing the neighborhood. The CIA tortured on behalf of the United States.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
the sentence CIA Lied Over Brutal Interrogations felt redundant and I got the idea of removing the tautological elements word by word but each time I ended up with an empty sentence. I had to start over 3 times before I realized I had to keep the first word.
With their own approval rating at 16%, Senate Democrats announced today that Bush was a meanie. More exciting news after the break.
There is no such thing as a terrorist. But it must be nice to see the world in black and white, saves you the trouble of having to actually think about or empathize with other humans.
"Wer mit Ungeheuern kampft, mag zusehen, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein."
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
No half-assed bureaucrat at the CIA wipes his nose without the authority of the US Congress. The authors of this report should be looking in the mirror. The Congress of the United States has completely failed this country. Both parties. They all knew it, they represent us, and they did nothing but for half of them writing a report pointing the finger at the other party, leaving out the obvious fact of their complete dereliction of their duty. They should have all resigned in ignominy when they published this. Right after the War Crimes tribunal for both sides. That would be justice.
Oh my goodness, an anonymous death-threat from someone defending CIA's torture on an online forum. That's adorable. I feel like I must be doing something right.
You know I always thought that the group of people that complained about death threats were overplaying it. I mean, who would actually send death-threats to someone complaining about torture? Or that lady complaining about how women are treated in video games, or the police brutality crowd. It really doesn't lend any weight to their argument. It makes them come off as... well... violent psychopaths with a REALLY bad grasp of irony. The exact sort of stereotype that they're being accused of being.
It's the sort of thing that makes me suspicious of some sort of casual agent provocateur. Or "trolling" if you prefer the newer term. But once you start with those sort of questions you might as well be jumping at shadows.
Damn shame he's a coward though. I'd like to hear how he thought that'd be a helpful comment.
to try to link the moral bankruptcy of torture to your irrational hatred of the scary black man.
and other ethical people. As long as you don't have to be reminded of your own moral shortcomings.
It's not useless, but it is limited. For example if you have two subjects who you suspect both have information about a certain subject you can separate them and ask them questions then torture them when their answers don't match. Since in most cases they won't have a pre-arranged story eventually they'll capitulate and tell the only thing they know the other one can confirm. Still horrible, still not ethical in most cases but not useless.
You gotta do what you gotta do. If someone was tied to terrorizing my neighborhood I would hang them from a chain, soak them with salt water, and zap them with a MIG Welder.
God I hope you aren't American. Because to any objective observer, it is the US who is terrorizing everyone else's neighborhoods. Do you apply the same standard to yourself?
If it was any other country using these techniques against American prisoners the US would be screaming about human rights, war crimes and sanctions. Yet when they do it it is ok??? You don't get to have it both ways, either it is fine to torture prisoners or it isn't. If it can be justified then they need to stop ranting about countries in the middle east, china et al as the US is no better.
The Israelis who have no qualms supporting state sponsored assassinations in the name of national security told the Bush administration that torture doesn't work.
For Xsakes, this are your friends telling you not to do it, because it doesn't work. What did Bush do? he carried on regardless.
This has become a signature pattern for the right in the last 15 years. It wasn't always that way. In the 80s and 90s one could disagree yet respect the opinion of Republican leaders and administrations, even if one didn't always agree with them. Somewhere around the time of the Contract with American ideology became more important than facts and it has been all downhill for America. The 2 trillion dollar invasion of Iraq on false pretenses, the loss of critical support across the world with unwarranted acts of torture, the obstructionist practices of the Republican congress v. the Obama administration.
Give it another 10 years and the present GOP will achieve from within what Osama Bin Laden foolishly tried to do with a few planes. He should have financed the Tea Party instead, and by now he would be further ahead in his goal.
It wasn't the Democrats that put us at risk, Sparky.
You're going to bathe them in a mixture of Argon/CO2 while poking them with a steel wire that has a small ball on the end?
wow.
There is no such thing as a terrorist.
There are most certainly groups that employ random violence intended to create fear and provoke political change. What definition of terrorism are you using?
...is zero on the US side.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
As a Brit living in Australia, two of the world's most ardent allies of the USA , I say this: America, you stink. When a friend tells you you stink you'd better wise up and do something about it. Your actions are CAUSING the terrorism that you are seeking so vainly to suppress. The more you oppress, the more people turn against you. I know you have a bit of a thick skull and your thinking processes are limited (as a country, we understand you have trouble walking and chewing gum, but that's OK, intellectual disability we can accept and sympathise with - we are similarly afflicted, truth be told). It's the actions we have a problem with. But now even your friends and allies can see the terrorists' point of view, and have done for some time. Wake up, fix your stupid foreign policies and you know, maybe THAT will sort out terrorism. It's win-win.
There's 'another side' to the use of torture?
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Reminds me of techniques used in asylums and sanitariums in the Victorian era. In fact, several of them are *exactly* techniques used in that era.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Your time in the sun has passed; you turned your back on your hard-won Enlightenment birthright and you have squandered your wealth.
We are all the poorer for the loss of what the United States could have been.
Your Empire has lasted far shorter than most; the collapse is coming, and it is well-deserved.
Fuck off and die.
The people who ordered this deserve to be tried for war crimes. Some individuals were actually tortured to death. Baby Bush would be first in line for a hanging. It makes me sick that the lowest level guards who were following orders were the ones who were drummed out of the service etc.. And the public should know that we caused other nations to apply even worse tortures within the same prisons. I would rather be loyal to humanity than loyal to any nation.
In the US, the powerful can be the most evil scum and commit the most heinous crimes against humanity and will have nothing to fear from "the law" at all.
To be clear, torture is a human rights violation against customary international law and treaty; it is not a crime against humanity unless it is part of widespread or systemic practice.
It is, however, widely practiced as a practical matter. Sometimes even by heads of state. This guy has personally tortured people, for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...
If I were President and I felt that X was necessary then I would document why I thought X was necessary and that I was solely responsible for X.
Afterwards, I'd release that to the media.
There wouldn't be any of these rolling revelations. Everyone would know that I thought it was necessary to torture persons A, B and C (and no one else) and that they were tortured and (redacted) information was collected and that the people who did so did so under my DIRECT ORDERS. No one else tortured anyone other than A, B and C.
Instead, we have denials, euphamisms, "extraordinary rendition", "black sites" and unsubstantiated claims.
We constantly try to convince ourselves and the world that we're supposed to be some sort of role model after which all others should strive to emulate.
.my point.
:|
Time and time again, the evidence tends to show that we can actually be much worse than those countries we love to demonize.
Can you imagine what would happen if another country ( pick one ) started a program like the one we run for snatching up Americans ( or American Allies ) suspected of ties to $scarylabel ?
Perhaps building their own version of Guantanamo and holding them indefinitely without charges, trial or even notification to anyone they were being held at all ?
Everyone here knows exactly what the reaction would be. Drone strikes, commando raids, hell we might even send a Battle Group or three and park them off your coast. Regime change, invasion, air strikes, sanctions, excuse for new war toys testing, etc. etc.
As long as the country in question isn't a major power of course. We love to send in the troops to countries that cannot possibly defend themselves from our mighty war machine. Not so much into the countries that can. See any Russian or Chinese detainees in that lovely detention camp of ours ? Yeah . .
Ever see a bully pick on someone who could kick their ass ? Me either.
Wonder how our war-nuts would handle it if $evil_country started snatching our worldwide intelligence agents ( or just Americans and their Allies at random ) and subjecting them to the same tortu. . . . er. . . . enhanced interrogation techniques that we use. Would be hilarious to hear what insanity would spew forth from our Government about how . . . how . . . EVIL such a thing is. How DARE they do that to an American ?! Resolutions !! Declarations !!! OMGTEHHORROR !! ( Fox News would just implode I think )
To the rest of the world, I would like to apologize for the arrogance, hypocrisy and illogical ideology of our "elected" government. If you have any ideas on how to fix it, we're all ears.
Terrorists kidnap, behead, murder and rape people everyday. No one cares. Muslims force non-Muslims to live under conditions much worse than than apartheid and no one says a word. Palestinians explicitly target civilians in unprovoked attacks because the burden of peaceful coexistence isn't compatible with their need to humiliate and persecute filthy infidels. It would be nice is we could fight our wars honorably. It would be nice if we didn't have to fight at all. It would be nice if I could turn on TV to a news station for a year, and for once, not hear about Muslims murdering people while they gloat live on TV every single time. It would be nice if the left-wing media didn't immediately blame everyone but the actual terrorists.
Sometimes you have to do bad things to evil people or they will do much worse to you or your love ones. People will blame you. They will say you are evil. They will say you provoked all of this. No amount of logic or truth will ever make them see the reality of your situation. You will be blamed no matter what you do. The terrorists will always be "innocent." You will persecuted because they are cowardly hypocrites who will always blame the person who refuses to be a victim.
Have a happy Christmas and don't be a bloody terrorists.
Very true, but we don't win by becoming like Muslims ourselves.
Except that doesn't work, because people being tortured will say anything to make it stop. At no point when they change their stories can you be certain they're now telling the truth. Even if their stories suddenly match, it could be a complete fluke, or as a result of the interrogator asking leading questions. Torture is useless.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
Ah but that's where international treaties and international law come in. If it is a war, then treat the prisoners like prisoners of war.
Not following it because the enemy combatants have not signed it? CONGRATULATIONS, that is literally the Nazi justification for atrocities.
Yes, godwinning, but treating "enemy combatants" inhumanely is ridiculously stupid, shortsighted, and loses the moral high ground.
They didn't have fun, to be sure, but brutal it wasn't.
Your ability to think of something more horrific does not mean it was not brutal. All you proved is that there are even more horrible things that can be done but that does not in any way mitigate or excuse needlessly harsh treatment of another human being. Just because you don't leave a mark doesn't mean it isn't torture and certainly doesn't make it right.
Oh just fuck off. If you actually read TFA, you'd see that it also indicates that Bush had little to no knowledge of the specifics of the interrogations or their brutality
Ahh, plausible deniability. I'm pretty sure he didn't ask either and it wasn't as if no one ever brought the subject up. Almost everyone involved reports to him so he is responsible on some level regardless of whether he knew all the details or not.
Also, waterboarding was done on 3 prisoners, though the media would have you believe every single prisoner in gitmo had it done to them. The onus here is on the CIA, primarily.
The CIA reports to the president. Even if it was just 1 person that is 1 too many. I expect our leaders and those trusted with protecting this country to behave better.
I prefer this memo: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2007/05/-versch-auml-rfte-vernehmung/228158/
Part of being the "good guys" means NOT being the "bad guys".
More people die in traffic accidents EVERY YEAR than the "terrorists" have ever killed here. So why give up a morally superior position to "fight" people who pose almost no threat to anyone outside their own countries?
I prefer to discourage people from attacking my countrymen, and simultaneously limit their capabilities to do so. That often means killing the people who are trying to kill us, until they get the idea that trying to kill us is a bad idea. Their incompetence in killing us does not erase the trespass. People who get into accidents have their insurance rates go up. People who try to kill us get killed. Actions have consequences.
If your neighbor was trying to kill you, repeatedly, would you tolerate it? Would you find the milk in your cereal curdled one day from poison, push it away, then look out your window and say 'Ah, nice try Mohammed! Maybe next time!.' I mean, you might notice that next crude tripwire before you set off the IED in your hedges.
You wouldn't tolerate it. You'd have him thrown in jail at the first try. Back to the national scale, if the people trying to kill us are in countries that will have them thrown in jail, great. If not, well, now we're back to the concept of war between distinct states or peoples. The fact that one side is weak and incompetent does not mean they get to keep trying without reprisal.
What you seem to advocate- ignoring attacks by barbarians as just another risk in modern society- is in it's own special moral vacuum. I'm having a hard time fathoming how such a dereliction could seem morally superior to you, and I can only guess your education has been a steady diet of 'Western civilization is the worst thing that ever happened to the world.' That sort of 'critical theory' rubbish has been all the rage in higher education for decades.
(I'm not studied up enough on the topic at hand- 'enhanced interrogation'- to condemn it or defend it.)
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
If torturing one prisoner could demonstrably save millions of lives, the act might still be immoral but it would certainly be welcomed by nearly everyone
That my friend is the very definition of a strawman argument with a bit of Reductio ad absurdum thrown in for good measure.
That's a fancy way of saying your argument is nonsense.
According to this, Bush approved the general program in 2002 but wasn't briefed on the specifics of the brutal methods being used until 2006, with which he was uncomfortable:
I doubt he asked either because then he wouldn't have plausible deniability. And if he was "uncomfortable" with the specifics once he became aware of them it didn't seem to cause him to act on his supposed discomfort. He was the president at the time and if he told them to stop they (probably) would have. If he didn't tell them to stop then he was the spineless misanthrope many of us suspected him to be.
There is no such thing as a terrorist. But it must be nice to see the world in black and white, saves you the trouble of having to actually think about or empathize with other humans. "
If not terrorists, how about Barbarians who must be kept at bay? The people who think we need to empathize with barbarians are often under the following mistaken impressions:
1) Westerners are the only real evil in the world today.
2) Westerners are the only people who act; who have agency. All other people do not have their own plans, thoughts and ideals- they merely react to what westerners do. They are automatons we can control through correct choices.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Generally fighting fire with water or other fire retardants is the preferred method.
It is in the very nature of evil that it "gets results". The entire point of morality is that there are things you will not do even if they are in your interest.
As an American citizen, I do not in any way approve of the use of torture. I am willing to accept the higher risk of death by terrorism, assuming the risk even is higher, in return for the country behaving in a moral fashion. I am willing to trade my safety for doing what is right. No torture, no indefinite detention, no extra-judicial killings.
If I knew a legal way to stop the US from using torture, I would.
We have become the things we always claimed that we opposed in the world.
Inquisition. Witch Hunt. McCarthyism. War on Drugs. War on Terror. Anyone else notice a pattern?
Torturing terrorists was never about the terrorists. It was about us. This is what morally flawed humans and arguments always fail at.
Here are some typical defenses for torturing terrorists:
- it's "not really" torture;
- it works;
- they are bad and we are good. Therefore we can torture them and it's justifiable;
- any one of our lives is worth any number of their lives. Therefore we can sacrifice an infinite number of their lives on the merest pretext that it might save one of ours;
- they are part of their tribe and we are part of ours. We can therefore ignore their needs and humanity.
Now here are the arguments against torture:
- in many cases, we have not actually proven they are terrorists;
- the merits of our systems (democracy, rule of law, habeas corpus, etc.) are self-evident. While we might talk them up to raise awareness, public relations is a simple go-with rather than a necessity to win and keep friends;
- when we behave like the enemy in order to defeat the enemy, we become indistinguishable from them;
- we destroy the internal life and morality of our troops, our intelligence analysts and our citizens when we force them to torture;
- we also lose the propaganda war when we torture. The enemy already says that we are immoral. Should we hand them victory on that score, even in our own minds? What about those of our allies and potential allies?
- the information gathered by torture is of questionable quality. I won't say it never works, or even how often. The question itself is irrelevant;
- when we torture we strengthen tribalism. Tribalism is one of the hallmarks of the enemy. Again we begin playing to the terrorists strengths.
Again, when we torture it's all about us, how we see ourselves, and what torture does to us. That is why I can never condone torture. Those who do have an irredeemable stain on their hands. I do not defend them or their actions.
"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." If you are OK with others torturing you and your loved ones, then by all means, support torture!
I realize this is a distracting thing to say, and I don't support torture, and it appears we've used it, and it's a crime that no one in power will unfortunately ever be held accountable to. My intent was more to say that I haven't RTFA or summary report; and I was responding only to the position of 'let's just ignore them because they're so terrible at killing us.'
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
The waterboarding done by the Japanese involved putting a hose down peoples throats, filling their stomachs to the bursting point and then hitting the victims stomach with sticks until it actually did burst.
Not even close to the same thing.
But still cruel, ineffective at actually getting reliable information and likely used on people that didn't have the information they sought and we (US citizens) should be fucking ashamed of our government and ourselves by proxy.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
"Fire Still Hot"
"Water Still Wet"
The uselessness of torture as an interrogation tool was conclusively described about 400 years ago in "Cautio criminalis" by Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld. You are free to ignore 400 years of knowledge though. But then you are just ignorant.
Always keep a dictionary handy, it saves looking foolish.
oligarchy
/quote?
[ol-i-gahr-kee]
Examples
Word Origin
noun, plural oligarchies.
1.
a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique; government by the few.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
That is what the CIA does. We should not be surprised. Covert assassination, Toppling legitimate foreign Governments, Dealing Crack in the USA, and that is only the things that are publicly know. Give me a break - outraged that they lied to Congress, Come on - their bread and butter is DECEIT!
This was 100% politics and had little to do with much else. Why else release such inflammatory information AGAIN?
...
The really sad part though is that it is highly possible that the release of this report will cost Americans their lives. The world is a dangerous place, but it's stupid to poke the enemy or hand them such a public relations win as this will be. We will be lectured by Iran and North Korea for human rights abuses and you can bet ISIS will be happy to use this to recruit/conscript more help.
(sarcasm)Oh Yea! That's great.. (/sarcasm)
The really sad part is that people get so caught up in petty politics that they can't see that torturing people is immoral and ineffective and that maybe we should consider not fucking torturing people and hold ourselves to a higher standard than "other people are worse than us."
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
No, it does not - it applies to all people under the jurisdiction of the United States, except where it says otherwise. Go ahead, try to actually read it - e.g. "the right of people to keep and bear arms ...". And yes, there are court cases that have established that as a precedent, too.
There are different rules on the battlefield, but once you capture them and bring them under US jurisdiction, all constitutional protections apply.
In any case, torture is an atrocity and a war crime regardless of what US Constitution says about it.
terrorists, stop being an idiot. Richard Reid tried to light a shoe bomb and didn't kill anyone, yet let at all of the trouble and hassle EVERYONE who flies has to go through now. It isn't always about death. It's also about our way of life. How much money do you think is being spent to find explosives on persons who fly?
So stop saying "More people are killed by albino left-handed sharks than terrorists because that isn't the point."
No, that's exactly the point. We've completely caved to fear and thrown what little moral standing we had in the world right out the window. We've spent well over a trillion dollars, killed thousands of people directly, tens of thousands indirectly and replaced an evil but fairly contained dictator with a sectarian battlefield. Because we're bad at math and suck at assessing threats. We are a nation cowards, armed to the teeth and afraid of shadows. We are the fucking boogieman.
And before I get shit for it, no I don't think we deserved to be attacked on 9/11 and terrorists are asshats. But that doesn't justify overreacting and it doesn't justify holding people sans due process and torture.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
The US Constitution only applies to US citizens. Certainly not to unlawful enemy combatants.
What are the first three words of the Constitution? "We the citizens?"
No, the constitution goes to great lengths to not limit rights to citizens except where it is natural (like rights to vote or run for office).
And what court has decided that they are "unlawful"? To be unlawful, there has to be law. Not just hearsay.
unlawful enemy combatants
Sorry, as a non-American, what does that euphemism even mean? I only heard it a couple of time coming out of US media and it makes no sense.
Are there "lawful" enemy combatants and under who's law these ones unlawful?
And aren't they enemy combatants because a "coalition of forces" invaded their countries?
Not trolling, but is that just a euphemism to put an air of respectability around 'they are the bad guys so anything goes' ?
It's also beside the point.
The people in Guantanamo has not been found guilty of beheadings. Do you really think it's the right thing to torture individuals for something other individuals of the same faith and complexion did at a later date? Can I torture you a little for what Jeffrey Dahmer did?
If anything, torturing prisoners is used as a justification for what's done to hostages by others.
No one has a right to condone inhuman behavior and then act offended when others respond with inhuman behavior. We reap what we sow.
I think the US Constitution purports to apply to federal actors. It seems to be worded in a way to put limits on their behavior.
As Lysander Spooner wrote:
But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
Personally, I think its purpose is to dupe people into believing that the racket that calls itself the United States of America is somehow a legitimate form of thuggery.
Torture is useless as an intelligence tool. It is also counterproductive for any reason other than a "sense of vengeance".
Sure, it satisfies that, but then you lose the moral high ground. And that shit is actually important.
I always thought that far Right wing social conservatives believed in torture beccause their God is the king of torture. Don't believe or forget to go to church on Sunday, and's it's into the barbeque forever for you, sinner! They wanna get in on the act too..
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
When Japanese did the same thing to Americans during WW2, the soldiers doing that, and officers issuing orders to do that, were found guilty of war crimes and hanged after the war. Funny, that.
No, it's not allowed. Not by US law, not by half a dozen treaties that US has signed, and not by the international laws and customs of war.
It's not useless, but it is limited. For example if you have two subjects who you suspect both have information about a certain subject you can separate them and ask them questions then torture them when their answers don't match. Since in most cases they won't have a pre-arranged story eventually they'll capitulate and tell the only thing they know the other one can confirm. Still horrible, still not ethical in most cases but not useless.
Doesn't that fly in the face of the other rationale that you have to torture the perp because you only have an hour before whatever you only have an hour before to do? Takes some time to play the compared stories game.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Are there "lawful" enemy combatants and under who's law these ones unlawful?
Yes, there are. I'll explain in a moment. The Law in this case is International Law - the Geneva Convention, among others, is involved here.
And aren't they enemy combatants because a "coalition of forces" invaded their countries?
Yes, that is part of what makes them enemy combatants. The other part is that they chose to shoot at those invaders.
Ok, so some explanation -- there's some rules of war that the countries in power at the time put together. They include things like soldiers needing to wear a uniform with identifying marks for the country (or group in cases where you might not have an officially recognized country) in whose service they are fighting. If two of those powers went to war, they'd follow those rules (in theory), and soldiers of the other side would be lawful enemy combatants (or usually just enemy combatants, contrasted against enemy civilians).
If some of those soldiers stripped off their uniforms and did stuff against those rules, they could be disavowed by the other country -- they were out of uniform and therefore they were unlawful enemy combatants. The special rules regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War wouldn't apply. They could be held after the cessation of hostilities, for example, and could be tried by the country that captured them for their crimes rather than those acts (such as mass-homicide and such) being considered acts of war and therefore somehow perfectly acceptable.
So if these insurgent groups wore a uniform of some sort, and followed a normal command structure, and didn't hide in civilian populations, they could be lawful enemy combatants. They'd also be a lot easier to eliminate, which is why they don't do that. However, because they aren't playing by the Big Powers rules, that means the Big Powers don't technically need to follow those rules either. I still think we should, but that's a separate discussion.
That should hopefully help you understand where the term comes from, and why it gets used in reference to actions like this.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
But the blow back undoes any advantage you got. The enemy knows we torture and uses it as a propaganda tool. Ie, the US does a better job of recruiting for Al Qaeda than Al Qaeda does. Also our friends know we torture and then don't want to be around friends so much (not a problem for US because we think "friend" means "does what we ask with no questions"). And it means that all those other countries out there are saying "hey, if US can torture then we can torture too!", or "if US can violate Geneva convention, then we can too!" And when our soldiers get captured, and they will, the enemy will use the same techniques we use or worse.
That's the main reason why so many in politics just wanted to cover all this up. They know it causes problems for the US, but it's ridiculous to pretend it doesn't exist or that anyone eventually freed from Guantanamo is lying when they claim to be tortured. If we don't want blowback from torture then we shouldn't do it.
Remember these are all interrogation methods disallowed by the army. The army knows there would be blowback. But they're ok for the CIA?
Another problem is that the interrogation techniques were not originally designed to get information. They were originally developed to get captured soldiers to admit to false confessions. Then the US used training for our soldiers so that they could attempt to resist such methods. Then ridiculously the CIA adopts those techniques and think that they would work to get useful intelligence. It's BS. If the CIA does know what it is doing then it is not using these enhanced interrogations to get information but for some other motivation (please the boss, please the political base, make it seem like we're doing something, finally have a suitable job for those who flunked the psych exam at Langley, etc).
Now there's this idiotic justification I do hear, not from politicians but the fanboys of one party or the other. That we treat the prisoners better than so many other countries. Dumb. That's like saying you beat your wife less than the neighbor does. Really, do these morons think that the standard of conduct should be "don't be as bad as North Korea"?
If it was intended as some sort of partisan football, it would have been released BEFORE the election, not after.
The Flamebait mod was quite appropriate
Brenner says CIA was unprepared for all that stuff. Didn't they practiced a lot in Latin America in the 70s?
The only thing worse than living in a world filled with monsters is not having your own monster. Nobody likes the killers after the dirty work is done but we keep them around because it would a death-wish not to.
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
Nah. You're confusing cause and effect. They just expect it from God because they'd do it.
You know what really pisses me off? That damn windshield that has to be installed on every car. SERIOUSLY?? I have never once been hit in the face with high wind, blown insects or leaves, or even rain while I've been driving. Yet we still have to have those windshields on every single car.
Yes, just like terrorists. You don't like the protections because you don't see any terrorist attacks. But if we removed the protection and it were KNOWN we removed them how many terrorists would jump at the opportunity?
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
The people who think we need to empathize with barbarians are often under the following mistaken impressions:
...
2) Westerners are the only people who act; who have agency. All other people do not have their own plans, thoughts and ideals- they merely react to what westerners do. They are automatons we can control through correct choices.
Well said.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
Another problem is that the interrogation techniques were not originally designed to get information. They were originally developed to get captured soldiers to admit to false confessions.
As was the case here. The the Bush/Cheney administration knew that they wouldn't get any useful intelligence from torture, but they wanted "evidence" pointing towards Saddam, so that they could start another war.
You are, of course, specifically referring to the section commonly known as the Bill of Rights. These amendments do not grant rights to anyone. The constitution does not grant rights to anyone. Doing so would make them privileges and not rights as rights are inherent and not something that can be granted. The Bill of Rights specifically limits the ways in which the government in allowed to infringe upon our rights. This is true both in intent and in wording. Further, those amendments do not make a distinction between citizens and non-citizens. You should try actually reading it sometime.
As far as "unlawful enemy combatants" goes, there is no such thing in international law. That is a term that was manufactured to make people feel better about denying folks their due process and to make torture easier to stomach. The people who created and support that sort of thing are cowards who lack any sort of honor or dignity. It is a stain on the country that will take decades or longer to wash off.
Germans called the French Resistance terrorists.
Play Command HQ online
Yet, you have surely seen a lot of insects, leaves or rain drops splashing on the windshield. Now compare that to the fight against terrorism...
So they torture people by waterboarding, painful physical positions, confining people in cold/hot/confined/rough/hazardous places, sleep deprive them for hundreds of hours, starve them, beat them, deafen them. ....And they lie too? They lie? They don't tell the truth to the US Congress, the US Senate, Federal Judges, the American People. They lie too? After all that torture, killing (some of the waterboarding was 'too successful'), some of those waterboarded (one prisoner was waterboarded nearly 200 times, another was waterboarded over 80 times in a single month), one was incoherent for days after being waterboarded. Tortured people will say anything to make it stop. Any information gained is questionable. As one man who was tortured put it: "Torture tells you nothing about the person being tortured, but tells you a lot about the people doing the torturing." So now we know about the C.I.A. We know about people like Dick Cheney, who was the Dr. Goebels to George W. Bush's Hitler. The C.I.A. is a 3 letter agency. They could save space by cutting out one letter. Eg: SS. And two lightning bolts could represent for them quick action.
However, because they aren't playing by the Big Powers rules, that means the Big Powers don't technically need to follow those rules either.
This is so horribly wrong that I don't even know how you came to this conclusion. There is nothing in law anywhere that says that if someone else is breaking the law that you are released from your obligations to follow it. Specifically in terms of the Geneva Convention and wartime conduct, you are *not* allowed to ignore the law even if your opponent is. Doing so will just cause both of you to potentially end up on trial.
So if these insurgent groups wore a uniform of some sort, and followed a normal command structure, and didn't hide in civilian populations, they could be lawful enemy combatants
Why would they do all of that when they are already lawful combatants? They weren't hiding in civilian populations...they were/are civilian populations. Al Quadia (as an example) is not a nation state and as such it is not bound by the Geneva Convention. The US Military (for example) is part of a nation state and is always bound by the Geneva Convention (specifically the 3rd Convention dealing with prisoners...the rest don't have to apply if the conflict doesn't involve another nation state, though they should be followed anyway and UCMJ is in line with that). The Geneva Convention does not apply to insurgent forces, civilians, homegrown militias, or other forces that are not affiliated with a nation state (this is where Blackwater gets hairy.) So if you send your military to fight a criminal organization, you still must respect the rules of war while they are free to disregard them as they please. It is up to you to try them in a court of law for any criminal acts that they commit.
And it's bizarro-world when John McCain, who was tortured for years in Vietnam, leaving him permanently physically damaged, agreed with Bush that waterboarding and other 'enhanced' interrogation methods were OK.
Totally Party-line over what's right, or even personal beliefs.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Torture is useless as an intelligence tool. It is also counterproductive for any reason other than a "sense of vengeance".
Sure, it satisfies that, but then you lose the moral high ground. And that shit is actually important.
It doesn't matter if it is effective. It doesn't matter if they lied about it. What matters is that the USA tortures people and torture is wrong.
People advocating torture always forget how many "witches" were hanged (or killed using other way) after they confessed all sort of satanic rituals and demonic concourse.
Sure nowadays the torture is less likely to leave physical traces in america, beside that torture is maoral and unethical, the lessons has long been known that torture is useless in getting informaztion out of people. Heck they might as well have asked the guatabnamo prisonner if they were witches and gotten positive answers.
But in the end for American, now their security is WORST than it was before. because 1) for decades they wilkl be known as hypocrite torturing people and putting them in prison forver without due process 2) they won't be able to pretend to have any moral ground whatsoever if somebody else torture an american to get "information".
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Now, why should DICK Cheney's lap dog be sent to jail? That's like convicting Pinky and letting The Brain walk free.
the US does a better job of recruiting for Al Qaeda than Al Qaeda does
This is a really important point that the US still doesn't seem to understand. It's not just torture either, take drone strikes as another example. By remotely killing faceless civilians from an air conditioned room somewhere the US just de-humanizes themselves in the eyes of their victims, making it even easier to hate and despise them.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, "shoot to kill" sounds good, but it doesn't set an enemy back more than a combatant that is wounded and unable to fight does. Beating a hasty retreat is a lot slower if you have to drag a half dozen screaming meatbags with you as you go. Battlefield resources such as food, fuel, medicine, transport and the time of other warriors are consumed by the needs of the wounded and are not completely available for warmaking. There are secondary resource consumptions after the wounded get to safe havens, too, as they have to consume time and resources while healing, such as food, medicine, time and attention and protection.
Prisoners are a potential source for information about what happened on the battlefield and intelligence relating to what might happen next or might be planned. Presented with hypothetical scenarios, they can help model the thought process of the enemy and inform on what positions or assets the enemy sees as vital, what they might see as superfluous, and what tools or tactics they might be most willing to use. Then, they can be a kind of chip for the return of your own prisoners when hostilities cease. If your prisoner is dead, you get none of that.
I'd rather have thousands and thousands of prisoners (hell, hundreds of thousands) to deal with (and the US/NATO coalition has the capacity to deal with that kind of load) than have to expend twice the amount of ammunition, blood and battlefield assets to ensure their demise while fighting when time and attention is most precious. Prisoners taken and removed far from the battlespace are not a threat, and they are out of a commander's way as he gains control over terrain and projects his force into new areas.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
Sorry, you're confusing two techniques. The one you refer to was used as a punishment. Waterboarding has always been an interrogation technique.
.. pa-ra-bo-la, pa-ra-bo-la, 2 pi R, 2 pi R, where's your latus rectum, where's your latus rectum, 2 pi R
... precise surgical removal of heads, on their captive, without applying any anesthesia ...
Now which one is more BRUTAL ???
Even if all the prisoners had been caught red-handed beheading people, that still wouldn't justify torturing them.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
The waterboarding done by the Japanese involved putting a hose down peoples throats, filling their stomachs to the bursting point and then hitting the victims stomach with sticks until it actually did burst.
Not even close to the same thing.
But still cruel, ineffective at actually getting reliable information and likely used on people that didn't have the information they sought and we (US citizens) should be fucking ashamed of our government and ourselves by proxy.
Yeah, some of us are. But it's not clear how a mere citizen can do anything effective about it without becoming one of the victims ourselves.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Nah. You're confusing cause and effect. They just expect it from God because they'd do it.
In the true spirit of "Man makes God in his own image".
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The really sad part is that people get so caught up in petty politics that they can't see that torturing people is immoral and ineffective and that maybe we should consider not fucking torturing people and hold ourselves to a higher standard than "other people are worse than us."
I'll accept your critique, but do try to THINK about and not just dismiss the political angle. This report was partisan in it's construction and partisan in it's release, and you can not dismiss that the timing of this was politically motivated. This was the democrats LAST CHANCE for at least 2 years to release this report which has been in the works now for at least 2 years (really more like 6+ years), not to mention that there clearly are things the administration wishes to deflect attention to going on right now. The timing was all about politics, make no mistake.
Also note that I'm not debating the issues raised, that some of what was done was neither helpful nor necessary and likely should have been avoided. I'm saying that the release of this information, at this time, is political and very partisan. If you cannot see that, then you are easily duped by rhetoric from your side. I suggest you be careful, politicians lie, mislead and obscure things to their advantage all the time.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
In a way that's irrelevant, as utility does not trump morality, but it really does remove even the slightest justification for torture.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You gotta do what you gotta do. If someone was tied to terrorizing my neighborhood I would hang them from a chain, soak them with salt water, and zap them with a MIG Welder.
You're so butch that reading your post got me pregnant, and I'm not even a girl.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sure, but actually happened is that someone terrorized your neighborhood, so you just picked a random guy off the street in the terrorist's hometown and started torturing him.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
Many of the connections to terrorism were tenuous at best, That someone you pick up that is "tied to the terrorist" could be the Subway "sandwich artist" that sold them a Pastrami foot long in the morning. If you then hung said condiment artisan them from a chain and applied some voltage, they would not only admit to the terrorizing, but they'd also admit to 9/11, admit to assassinating Archduke Ferdinand, and admit to blowing up the Maine and starting the Spanish-American war. You're usually just adding more hay to the haystack, not finding any new needles.
One of the big takeaways from the torture report is not only is torture wrong, but it's useless. So you dirty yourself for not a lot of gain. The mechanics of torture work closer to terror than you'd like to think. It's effective at scaring a big subset of your chosen population and emboldening a small subset. If you're a despot and trying to control a population, you probably can handle the said "emboldened" subset. But we're not talking control here, we're talking about getting actionable intelligence in a very short period of time. I remember a story where a captive was tortured and gave up nothing - but when an interrogator gave him sugar free cookies (he was diabetic) the interrogator seemed more human and gained trust and intelligence.
Yet, you have surely seen a lot of insects, leaves or rain drops splashing on the windshield. Now compare that to the fight against terrorism...
Yes I have seen those things because insects blown by the wind, leaves and drops of rain are incapable of being deterred the way a terrorist is.
Perhaps a better analogy regarding insects is a screen window. Why have one? Do you ever see insects flying into a screen? If no insects ever fly into the screen, then how can the screen be keeping the insects out of your house? The answer is deterrence. The insects see the screen in the window so they don't try to fly through the window.
I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
I don't think the utility is really the strongest argument against it, I personally think it's unethical in all but the most unusual of cases and that's grounds enough. That said, I think you need to take the report produced with a grain of salt, it's not like the Democrats would come out in the current political environment and say "yeah, they did everything right and were completely justified, wow that Bush guy really knew what he was doing". (I didn't like or vote for Bush and don't really think he was a very good president but even if he was they wouldn't admit it)
Does morally misguided mean it's still moral? Does legally misguided mean it's still legal?
From top to bottom, if "I believed torture/preemptive strikes/FISA/giving banks a blank check/shooting to kill was the right thing to do.", regardless of how many people die or are violated or how much tax money it costs, then you were merely misguided?
Relax, I'm really not offended. I find your schoolyard level whining to be, at most, adorable.
But that doesn't mean it's not a death threat:
"Someone should probably be beheaded. Someone like you."
See that? You're suggesting I should have my head cut off. But no, it's obviously not serious and obviously you're impotent in this regard so I really don't feel threatened. It's only a small step above "hey you, go DIAF".
Now.... in case you actually hang around... think about what you're doing here. You're posing a message that you believe would endanger your job. The term "fire-able offense" comes to mind. Is that the sort of grassroots defense that the would help absolve the CIA of their international crime? (And yes, the USA signed that covenant) Do you REALLY think that suggesting I be brutally murdered is a good way to point out the difference between torture and execution?
I would be very interested to hear what people have to say regarding different country's history of their government's self criticism. I can't recollect any recent publications or articles like this outside the US.
"do no torture on my behalf",
we should perhaps scream
I am willing to let X=8,143 people a year die from terrorist attacks rather than use torture
The number 8,143 is what we are arguing about.
The CIA thinks X is something small, like 1 child or 3 innocent adults.
The rest of us must think X is closer to 1M. Interestingly, it is the scientific humanists among us who claim X=Inf, even though they do not have a moral compass like the church telling them that. More proof that it does not take a religion to make one moral.
"There is no god but allah" - well, they got it half right.
People who conduct hostilities without uniforms are either (a) resisting an invasion before the regular army shows up (see the appropriate Hague convention for this), or (b) criminals. Criminals are not normally subject to punishment without a trial, and they are normally protected from cruel and unusual punishments after (and torture is, by definition, cruel).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How many who were tortured died from the action? Why wont the CIA fess up.
Ex parte Quirin, stating that military tribunals for POWs are constitutional, implies that constitution does apply. That Geneva also applies is orthogonal to that.
Are you sure Democrat leaders knew all about this? Sure that OBL was found through torture? Sure there's no value in letting the US public know what went on in the name of the US?
You do realize that Bush and company could have easily prevented this whole thing from happening, by not torturing. If we get lectured on human rights abuses, it's because we damn well deserve it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Evil doesn't necessarily get results. Sometimes people do evil things for other reasons. In this case, there's a whole lot of good evidence stretching back over centuries that torture is a really bad way to get information. I don't call that getting results.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
No we don't "deserve it" especially from the likes of North Korea, Russia, China or Iran.
Your questions, one at a time:
YES, democrats knew about this. They get classified briefings, same as the president. Plus you do recall they talked about some of this right? Or is your memory that short?
Pretty sure OBL was found though information obtained though interrogation done using "enhanced" techniques.
Finally: We already knew, maybe not the full extent, but we knew about waterboarding, we knew about sleep depravation, all where previously outlined in the press and recounted by former Gitmo residents. It was a subtext of Obama's first campaign for president.
So I ask you, why do we need to know the details? I don't think the details are all that important, and this report doesn't expose anything we already haven't discussed in the public forum. That we use "enhanced" techniques when questioning combatants during a war isn't that important. We've done it for all our history, as EVERY other country in the world has in times of war. We've done much worse in the past, and I think we showed remarkable restraint compared to what this country allowed during WWII.
But, if we stipulate that we shouldn't do this kind of stuff, I ask you if it's permissible to just kill them on the battle field? Would you rather we just do that? Oh wait a min, we ARE doing that RIGHT NOW! Are drone strikes so routine that YOU don't care about them? But how do you prosecute a war without killing people and breaking things? Shall we just talk to them and use reason? Yea, that's going to work..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Naw, kill 'em with drones when no one is looking, and kill their wives and children too. THAT IS WHAT WE ARE DOING. But mum's the word, because Democrats are doing it.
Murphy was an optimist
I suggest you actually read the decision in Quirin. That constitution applies doesn't mean that they get all the rights that civilians do.
> CIA Lied Over Brutal Interrogations
An “interrogation” is you sit someone down and ask them questions and they answer you or they don’t. When things are being shoved up someone’s ass, that is no longer an “interrogation” — it is an act of torture just like there are acts of rape and acts of murder. Torture has absolutely nothing to do with interrogations, just like rape and murder have nothing to do with interrogations. These people were tortured by agents of the US government solely for the gratification of those agents and the gratification of the architects of the torture program. “Interrogation” is simply the excuse they make, and you are making that excuse for them here for some reason.
tens of thousands indirectly
Make that hundreds of thousands; check out what Madeline Albright has to say about the estimated 500.000 infant deaths in Iraq. She thinks it was absolutely 'worth it'.
The mountains of madness have many little plateaus of sanity - Terry Pratchett.
It wasn't released before the election because it is an unpopular partisan football. It wasn't released before the election because it would have cost the dems votes. Since they've already lost control of the senate they have to release it now before they lose control of the senate. Again, you're missing the point of why was this released now? Do you think that this report just happened to be finished at the end of November? Don't be naive. This report has been declassified since July. This report was released because as a lame duck dem senate there is nothing for them to lose.
Feinstein, along with Pelosi and other democrats, knew this was going on. They were briefed AS IT WAS HAPPENING. Was anyone in the CIA or anyone involved in these interrogations interviewed? NOPE. That should tell you everything right there.
The "flamebait" mod was bullshit because my comment was political. My comment was political because this report along with the timing of it's release was purely political. Again look who wrote the report, when it was ready, when it was released, and who was ignored.
and napolean, and just about everyone else who's tried it, outside of villians in pop culture. The problem with most of America, is that many people can't understand things beyond pop culture refrences.
It means that the people we trust to "keep us safe" are more involved with indulging their perversities than with doing what would work better in terms of gaining intelligence, (let alone any question of who's guilty or innocent, which was not determined at the time all these folks were apprehended and imprisoned); and that half the American public agrees with them. That oughta keep us safe.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
You gotta do what you gotta do. If someone was tied to terrorizing my neighborhood I would hang them from a chain, soak them with salt water, and zap them with a MIG Welder.
And if you couldn't find them, then you'd find a bunch of random folks, and do it to them. Because this is serious, dammit!!
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Are there "lawful" enemy combatants and under who's law these ones unlawful?
Yes, there are. I'll explain in a moment. The Law in this case is International Law - the Geneva Convention, among others, is involved here.
And aren't they enemy combatants because a "coalition of forces" invaded their countries?
Yes, that is part of what makes them enemy combatants. The other part is that they chose to shoot at those invaders.
Ok, so some explanation -- there's some rules of war that the countries in power at the time put together. They include things like soldiers needing to wear a uniform with identifying marks for the country (or group in cases where you might not have an officially recognized country) in whose service they are fighting. If two of those powers went to war, they'd follow those rules (in theory), and soldiers of the other side would be lawful enemy combatants (or usually just enemy combatants, contrasted against enemy civilians).
If some of those soldiers stripped off their uniforms and did stuff against those rules, they could be disavowed by the other country -- they were out of uniform and therefore they were unlawful enemy combatants. The special rules regarding the treatment of Prisoners of War wouldn't apply. They could be held after the cessation of hostilities, for example, and could be tried by the country that captured them for their crimes rather than those acts (such as mass-homicide and such) being considered acts of war and therefore somehow perfectly acceptable.
So if these insurgent groups wore a uniform of some sort, and followed a normal command structure, and didn't hide in civilian populations, they could be lawful enemy combatants. They'd also be a lot easier to eliminate, which is why they don't do that. However, because they aren't playing by the Big Powers rules, that means the Big Powers don't technically need to follow those rules either. I still think we should, but that's a separate discussion.
That should hopefully help you understand where the term comes from, and why it gets used in reference to actions like this.
Yes, enemy combatants who attempt to avoid identification are classified as spies and terrorists, and are not protected by rules of war. On the other hand, you do have to supply some evidence that they are actually combatants, and not just some shmuck picked up off the street, or turned in by a tenant who owed 6 months rent.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
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You're implying that this was not useful information in the War On Terror. In fact, this was soon followed by Operation Smile, consisting of airdrops of huge numbers of filed toothbrushes over suspected enemy territory, followed by incessant bombardment with depressing Emo songs.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves.-- Confucius
Casteism
This was 100% politics and had little to do with much else. Why else release such inflammatory information AGAIN?
...
The really sad part though is that it is highly possible that the release of this report will cost Americans their lives. The world is a dangerous place, but it's stupid to poke the enemy or hand them such a public relations win as this will be. We will be lectured by Iran and North Korea for human rights abuses and you can bet ISIS will be happy to use this to recruit/conscript more help.
(sarcasm)Oh Yea! That's great.. (/sarcasm)
The really sad part is that people get so caught up in petty politics that they can't see that torturing people is immoral and ineffective and that maybe we should consider not fucking torturing people and hold ourselves to a higher standard than "other people are worse than us."
When you're in the authoritarian hierarchical decision making mode, if your superiors tell you torture isn't immoral and anyway we're not doing it, then it's Your Truth. (See also "It's Not Warming, and Besides, Nobody Denies It's Warming, Scientists are Fraudsters")
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Torture is useless as an intelligence tool.
There have been instances in the history where torture has proven to be a helpful intelligence tool. The most notorious one has been that of General Jacques Massu using torture to completely uproot the leadership of the National Liberation Front in the Battle of Algiers. Massu has attributed his success to his technique of using torture hand in hand with extensive classic intelligence work.
The problem there was not that torture wouldn't work - it did, but it had some unpleasant side effects. You would inescapably end up torturing innocent people - but even torturing just the 'guilty' destroys your PR. The French ended up alienating the general population of Algiers (even more than before the incidents) and eventually had to leave the country. Meaning that torture helped them to win the battle but it had cost them the war.
but at the very least you should make an effort to filter out the innocent people. The report showed that the US tortured pretty much anybody they wanted, even people they were sure were innocent. Same for people thrown in a hole in guantanamo.
or your son, 24 years later.
I can sort of see why he likes it.
So they'd be lawful of they put on obvious clothes and stood outside so they could be systematically shot from above by drones? Nice logic right there. Of you want a perfectly fair fight, send in as many of your soldiers as they have, with the same level of weaponry and then see how it goes down. Calling them cowards because they don't fight a war on your terms, where you have drones and cruise missiles to kill from 100 miles away is, well, cowardly of you.
I didn't make any statements agreeing or disagreeing with the system, I was describing it as it exists currently. It was written well before those technologies existed, and was meant for "conventional" warfare.
Also, by your logic, pain clothes, undercover agents are fair game for torture when captured.
You still going to stick with that line?
Yes, espionage agents are routinely part of the black-ops "disavowed by their government" and fair game for treatment as criminals rather than as prisoners of war.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
I believe the point he was making is that defending your home against a foreign invader as a civilian does not catapult you into "enemy combatant" status; it makes you (at most) guilty of murder in self defense.
Whether we invade you or you invade us, if you shoot at the members of the military on the "us" side, you are an enemy combatant to the people of that "us" side. I don't see how this is even a questionable point. You aren't "guilty" of anything, you are labelled as something.
Here, I'll make a simple set of qualifiers:
* Are you in combat with someone? Yes? You're a combatant.
* Are you shooting at the people on my side? Yes? You're an "enemy" combatant to the people on my side.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Democrats got briefed, yes. Did they get briefed truthfully? Truth in briefing doesn't seem to be in the NSA playbook.
Why are you pretty sure we got OBL from information from torture? Without further evidence, I'd suspect we got him through information derived from more reliable means,
We knew something was up with torture, but we didn't know the details. It was easy to disregard it as exaggerated, particularly after Obama swept it under the rug. Snowden's revelations didn't tell some of us much of anything we hadn't been fairly sure of, but it's really hard to convince other people of such things without solid evidence. Some people would think I was being paranoid.
Have you done much studying about torture in warfare? I haven't found good sources on it. I'm suspicious that this has been standard practice. Certainly US troops have roughed up PoWs, and sometimes killed them, but I haven't found much reference to torture by the US, and I don't read much blindly patriotic crap. It's worth noting here that most of the torture being covered was not from the US Armed Forces.
And, yes, in war it's perfectly legitimate to kill people on the battlefield, until they surrender. That's because they're out there, not under our control, and they're dangerous. Even so, it isn't legitimate to do certain things. The use of bullets that can't be detected by X-rays is banned, for example, as are weapons whose primary purpose is to blind or be poisonous. We can't torture an active enemy on the battlefield. We have to capture that enemy, at which point he is no longer a threat, and that means international law and military honor limit what we can do to the prisoners.
The report really did need to be released, in an attempt to rein in the CIA. If the CIA didn't want to deal with the consequences of torture, they shouldn't have tortured people.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Does Slashdot still offer mod points? I wish I had some to give to Anguirel (58085). Human history is filled with periods of war (pick a Continent, any Continent). The Geneva Convention was created for a reason. If the US loses its "moral compass" and begins to believe the Geneva conventions can be set aside when its convenient, then we've taken a big step backwards instead of forward in terms of human progress.
Parts of it do apply to non-US citizens, though...
Aaah there you go again making your childlike xenophobic comments. Why do you expect anyone to take you seriously on other threads when you clearly can't see past the end of your white picket fence? Your family and society failed you.
Democrats got briefed, yes. Did they get briefed truthfully? Truth in briefing doesn't seem to be in the NSA playbook.
This was NOT the NSA and Yes the Democrats got EXACTLY what the president got and then some. The President's Daily Brief is not just for his eyes, both the house and senate intelligence committees get copies.
As for the rest of your post, because you don't understand even the basic facts and procedures all that well and I don't have time to waste trying to educate you on how the intelligence system of the USA actually works, I'm just going to dismiss it. You obviously don't understand the difference between NSA and CIA or how all this took place, not to mention that you either are *really* young and didn't watch the news during the Iraq war, or your memory is pretty short. In any case, go back and read some about 9/11 and the Iraq war, specifically about what the democrats where saying about it back then. They knew full well what was going on.
Go learn something about what you are making confident assertions about. The rest of your post is useless and I don't have time to spend educating you on where you obviously don't understand how things really work.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
In the U.S., sure, citizen suspects (not necessarily criminals -- we don't even know if they've done anything wrong at this point, after all, that's what trials are for) would be protected until convicted in trial, and then still protected from cruel and unusual punishment. Non-citizen suspects have somewhat fewer protections, but most of that would still apply (I believe in some cases they can be deported with a minimal trial or no trial, but I'm not certain). However, this isn't happening in the U.S., so they'd have whatever protections those countries offered. Many of them where the CIA set up these prisons, offer little to no protection against those sorts of things.
So if they're suspects of being hostile forces acting outside the conventions of warfare (e.g. unlawful combatants), they're subject to whatever punishments are allowed, and whatever trials are required in the place they're captured, or the place they're detained. There's a reason they haven't brought those people to the U.S. itself.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
I blame both sides which are the same party anyway.
It is too bad that did not dissuade them from torturing people in the first place. We deserve what is going to happen because of this.